


Maybe Even Break Apart

by tardisthetrain



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Blood, F/M, Stabbing, journey to the centre of the tardis, tardis being grumpy af
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-15
Updated: 2015-09-12
Packaged: 2018-04-20 08:18:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4780343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardisthetrain/pseuds/tardisthetrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The TARDIS has been lured into the Van Baalen's salvage ship, and now it's falling apart, with zombie creatures, the Van Baalen brothers, and Clara and the Doctor trapped inside. Each corner turned makes another hall to get lost into. Bram Van Baalen is missing, and Gregor is acting weird towards Tricky. Clara Oswald is now lost in the TARDIS with them both, and the Doctor is nowhere to be found. Zombie creatures and a creaky, breaking TARDIS doesn't help anything.<br/>The TARDIS is breaking down, and someone's screaming. It's not Clara. It's not Tricky, or Bram, or Gregor.<br/>Who's left?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe Even Break Apart

Clara was not liking this part of the TARDIS. Most of the rooms she had wandered into in the past were warm and welcoming, and vastly spectacular. These corridors were rather the opposite. They were dark and hot, twisting and never-ending. They were cramped, holding her and Tricky and Gregor too close for comfort. It wasn't helping that there were zombie creatures around every few corners.

And topping it all off, the Doctor was missing.

Something clanged sharply in the ceiling above their heads, and the three of them all jumped back instinctively. Clara reached back, searching for the Doctor's hand, but he wasn't there. Her own hand was burning, something scarring into her palm, marking the moment of the TARDIS crashing. It would be stuck with her forever, she was sure of it, forcing her to remember this terrifying time in the place she thought was safe.

In her reach for the Doctor, her wrist bumped with Gregor's thigh. He inhaled sharply, his head snapping to the side to give her a look. Immediately, she pulled her hand back to her side, embarrassed for seeming scared.

"What's that noise?"

She wanted the Doctor to answer, to come up from behind her and grab her hand, explain it all and save the day. He didn't. Tricky answered instead, glancing up from his scanner.

"It's the primary fuel  _cell_ ," he said, voice crackling. "We're right under it." _  
_

Clara swallowed. "So... So what?"

Gregor was looking up at the ceiling when another part of the TARDIS groaned. "You smell that? It's leaking. Fuel is leakin' out."

Tricky stepped away from Gregor and Clara, carefully brushing his fingers against the nearest wall. "It's an old fu _el_ cell. Rods. They'll be  _ex_ posed if it's le _aking._ They'll cool off..."

"And start to warp," Clara finished.

"It sounds like..." Gregor paused, stepping away from the wall.

Clara's head shook back and forth vigourously. "No. Don't say it."

"Sounds like..."

"Don't you dare say it."

"They're  _breakin'_ apart."

Tricky was the only one brave enough to say it. He pulled his hand away from the wall, stepped closer to the others, and, within a split second, the wall erupted.

A pipe busted through the wall, ripping a hole into either side, cutting diagonally into the space in front of them. They all jumped back, and another pipe cut into the wall behind them.

Clara wanted the Doctor's hand. She wanted his reassurance. She wanted him to run with her and take her to safety. She just wanted to find  _her_ Doctor.

Instead, Gregor just pushed her shoulder, guiding her to duck under the poke. "RUN!" he screamed at her. "RUN!"

Tricky followed behind them, navigating under every duck and side-step that came with the next pole breaking through the walls.

Clara yelped as one of the rods nearly struck right through her hand. Gregor kept pushing her through, leading them into a clearing, an open mouth with six possible ways of moving, six possible ways to get killed. Rods were breaking into the walls of each hallway, and Clara squinted down each one, looking for any sign that the Doctor was near, tending to his TARDIS and trying to calm her pain. He wasn't anywhere in sight. She couldn't hear him muttering to his ship, stroking the walls and crying for her, searching for anything he could do to fix her. He wasn't there, though. He wasn't anywhere.

She let out a sigh, her hands raising to push her hair out of her eyes. Tricky and Gregor were panting, as was she, out of breath from the experience of running through a breaking time machine. None of them spoke, just gratefully accepted the moment without running for their lives.

Another part of the TARDIS creaked, and the three of them all braced to run again, bracing themselves for something to break right in front of them. They all jumped when they heard a wall crack open somewhere distant, and the metal rod scratching, piercing through the time machine. They waited for the second crack, for the rod to hit the other side of the narrow hall, but it didn't come. Nothing cracked, and Clara let out her breath, perhaps too soon.

A scream, a heart-stopping scream echoed though the halls. The Doctor. The Doctor was hurt somewhere in his breaking TARDIS with zombie creatures running through every corner, and Clara didn't know where he was. Her clever boy was hurt, and she couldn't find him.

"Doctor!"

She took off running in the direction of the scream. Gregor reached out to stop her, a heavy hand resting down on her shoulder, to try and keep her from going. She just shook him off and kept pushing forwards.

Gregor glared after her, huffing in annoyance. If she ran off, she could get them all killed. It wasn't worth it. Bram was already lost. They had spent enough of their lives in the deconstructing machines. Gregor turned, giving Tricky an equally annoyed look. "Let's go," he grunted, pushing past Tricky, assuming that the android would follow. He didn't.

"Tricky, let's go! Come on!" Gregor insisted, tugging on the android's arm. "It's not safe down here. We've got to go."

Tricky pulled his arm away, ducking under the rod stuck in the wall ahead of him. "No. There're still life signs." His eyes scanned down the corridors, checking through walls for organic material. He could see Clara's outline, running down a hall not too far from where they were. The Doctor's outline was further off, leaning against a wall. "They're this way," he urged.

Gregor tried, again, to stop him as he ran off, maneuvering through the steel rods. "You're kiddin' me, Tricky," he grumbled, and took off running behind him.

* * *

Clara could hear the footsteps following her, but it didn't matter in her mind, not anymore. Looking back would slow her down. Crossroads in the halls were becoming more frequent, and running felt useless, like she was getting further away from the Doctor.

She came to a stopping point, tears threatening to fall down her cheek. She couldn't find him. The TARDIS was just moving her in circles, and she was almost sure of it now. She wasn't going to find the Doctor. He was somewhere in his TARDIS, hurt, maybe dying, and Clara wasn't getting any closer to him, despite every turn she took. "Please," she begged. Maybe she was talking to the TARDIS, if the machine could hear her, and understand her. "Please, just let me find him... He's here, I know he is! Where is he?"

Someone grabbed her from behind, and, spinning around, she couldn't help but scream. She scrambled back, her hands forming a fist and colliding with Tricky's shoulder. He stepped back, raising his hands in defense, easily as surprised and scared as she was by her sudden outburst. Clara deflated, the tears in her eyes falling freely down her cheeks.

"Tricky," she sighed. "I'm sorry. I-I thought..."

"It's okay," he told her, shaking his head.

He squinted down the hall, trying to focus and find the outline of the Doctor. He hadn't moved, still leaning against the wall, but closer now. Tricky pointed to the corridor straight ahead of them. "He's this way," he told her, jogging ahead. 

Clara didn't hesitate to follow, quickly catching up beside him, but running felt wrong. She ran with the Doctor and she didn't feel so scared. They could look back on the running and laugh, and not feel like they were on the verge of death. Running beside Tricky and Gregor made her feel small, like she would be crushed at any given moment and they wouldn't be able to laugh about it later.

Tricky turned the next corner, and his boots squeaked as he halted. Clara stopped short, her face turning ghost white. Her breaths shuddered. She barely noticed Gregor slamming into her from behind.

Forget zombie creatures. Forget possibly dying in a TARDIS, far, far from home. This was her biggest fear. This was her worst nightmare. This was going to haunt her for the rest of her days.


End file.
